1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a method and apparatus for coordinating or arranging for services and, in one particular embodiment, to a method and apparatus for coordinating or arranging automotive glass repair services for a policyholder of an insurance company.
2. Technical Considerations
In many commercial fields, the service or parts providers for a particular field present a fragmented array of individual providers where individual customers may not have an organized approach to obtaining the best services or parts at an acceptable price. An example of such a field is the current automotive glass repair service industry.
In the field of automotive glass repair, individual glass repair shops typically receive work directly from the policyholder (customer) of an insurance company or through the local insurance agent or regional claims adjuster for the insurance company of the policyholder. After the work is completed, the repair shop sends an invoice to the insurance company or designated agent for payment and the insurance company remits payment to the repair shop. However, there are drawbacks associated with this conventional method. For example, the insurance company typically may negotiate discount prices with each repair shop individually and all repair shops may not be willing to give similar discounts. Improvements in reducing this time and effort for negotiation could reduce policy costs for the policyholder. Also, much time is spent by the insurance company in auditing the invoices from the glass repair shops. It is not unusual for many of the invoices received by an insurance company to have one or more errors, such as incorrect prices or incorrect part numbers. This conventional invoice review system is quite burdensome to most insurance companies. Reducing the time involved in checking and/or correcting the invoices could also help reduce policy costs, which would be beneficial to the policyholder.
As an alternative to this conventional method, glass repair middlemen evolved to help coordinate glass repairs. These middlemen typically own a number of glass repair shops. A middleman contracts with an insurance company to repair or replace automotive glass loss for that insurance company's policyholders at a discount from a conventionally accepted price. The repair shops then do the repair work at a larger discount and bill the middleman at this more highly discounted rate. The middleman then bills the insurance company at the previously agreed upon discounted price and pockets the difference between what the repair shop billed and what the insurance company paid. These middlemen typically conduct this service at no fee to the insurance company since they are compensated by the discount difference between what they charge the insurance company and what the repair shop charges the middleman.
In addition to repair shops directly owned by the middleman, the middleman may also contract with independent glass repair shops willing to do glass repair work for a discount for the insurance company. Some independent repair shops agree to such a discounting procedure simply to receive the repair work. However, this system is not advantageous to the independent glass repair shops because it is time consuming and does not enable the repair shops to maximize their efficiency. Since the middleman's profit is dependent upon the discount at which the repair shops are willing to work, the independent repair shops are also under constant pressure from the middleman to decrease their prices. Further, the middleman is inclined to direct most of the work to the shops he owns and over which he has the most control to further maximize his profits. Also, the independent glass repair shops in this system are not working directly for the insurance company but are rather working for the middleman who, in reality, is actually one of their competitors. This system is also not advantageous to the insurance company or its policyholders since the true extent of the discount offered by the repair shops is not passed on to the insurance company or its policyholders but rather a large portion is kept by the middleman as profit.
Another exemplary fragmented commercial field is the home repair field. Individual home repair service providers may receive work from various customers, such as, for example, insurance company policyholders, insurance agents, insurance companies, or from individuals seeking to have home repairs conducted. Again, the customer must typically negotiate with several service providers before obtaining a desirable fee. This negotiation process is time consuming for both the customer and the service provider. Further, the time required for generating and auditing invoices, as well as the time required to correct any errors, is burdensome to the service provider and the customer. This time lost in negotiation and billing review could better be spent by the service provider in performing services for more customers and could better be spent by the customer in conducting his normal activities.
The above discussed glass repair and home repair fields are simply exemplary of the numerous commercially fragmented fields in which improvements could be made to benefit both the service providers and the customers who desire the particular services.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to provide a method and apparatus for coordinating services which could be practiced over a wide variety of service applications and which could be used by a variety of types of customers. It would further be advantageous to provide a method and apparatus for coordinating services that not only benefits the customer but also fosters competition among the service providers. It would be particularly advantageous to provide a method and apparatus for coordinating the automotive glass repair process for the policyholder of an insurance company which eliminates the middleman, which are more acceptable to independent repair shops, and which overcome or reduce the drawbacks associated with the prior automotive glass repair systems discussed above.